Christine is the best! She has always been organized, methodical, and extraordinarily patient. I…read morewould have no hesitations working with her again.

Christine is a wonderful educator and deeply cares for her students. She has repeatedly shown her…read morededication and passion for teaching throughout my time with her. I would have no hesitation to work with her again if I needed to. She is smart, knowledgeable, and able to translate the problem so that it's easily understood. She is also patient, kind, and approachable with any concerns you may have. I have no regrets or qualms about my time with her. Thank you Christine for all the help.

Incredible , top-tier service, and a lovely atmosphere. I will definitely be back! Will recommendread more

We are very grateful for Ilumin's support throughout the college application process. The team was…read moreknowledgeable, responsive and encouraging. They made the process much less stressful. We truly appreciate their guidance and would highly recommend Ilumin to other families.

We were referred to John by one of our close friends and we are so thankful we did it. John and…read morehis team worked closely with our son for four years, from course selection to summer camp application, and eventually through the college app process. He put a lot of thought and paid extra attention to every details of the application forms. He is our guardian on meeting every milestone in this journey. John is more of a mentor to my son as well. He helped him navigate through his stress and anxiety, so that he could focus on making progress in his course work and applications. He also help bridging the communication between us and our son, which we deeply appreciated to balance our relationship during the crunching times. We would highly recommend John, he is the one you can count on!

Entering my senior year of High School and the chaos of college applications, I was very lost on…read morewhat a strong college essay and application looked like. I remember having different extracurricular experiences to talk about but there was a missing piece of how to word my essay and let alone start on my essays. I spent 2 weeks blankly starring at my document before realizing I needed more help than I expected. It wasn't until I started working with John and Jamie that I was able to talk about my life experiences and turn them into strong essays that reflects who I am and the type of leader I am in any community. Working with them helped me quickly understand how college essays are structured and how I can word my experiences to illustrate my strong characteristics as a student and leader. I really appreciated the weekly workshops provided by Jamie and John for extra time to spend on essays. As someone who had a hard time finding time and motivation to work on my essays, the workshops and set meeting times held me accountable for getting my work done before each meeting. I would 100% recommend John's service to anyone else struggling during this process. I am now committing to UC Davis and I couldn't be more grateful for the help provided by John and Jamie.

This review is about Angela Sun's college counselling abilities. Our experience was exactly the…read moreopposite of what's written here and I would give negative stars if I could !! She was an absolute nightmare to deal with and has zero emotional intelligence or tact to deal with young teens !! She preys on parent's weaknesses and has clearly understood parents would do anything for their children as long as she says things like she got admission into MIT, Ivy's and self proclaims that she is the absolute best college consultant who will make your child write the absolute best essays he can ever write !! (I am paraphrasing it but she said something like that to me in our first meeting !). She made it amply clear even before I met for the first time that all she cares about is money and nothing else ! She charged me $300 per hr saying it's "the weekend rate" - whatever that means (although her website only mentions 250 per hr ). She was laser focused on the money in our conversations and showed zero interest in knowing my child before or after the meeting. Her website says parents will get a detailed report within 24 hrs of the first meeting, and we received no such report. The first meeting was a complete disaster. She was so rude (and please don't say she is strict/tough /good etc). No - she was plain rude and not good as a counselor !! My son was so scared of her that after a point stopped answering even basic questions ! She gave as little info as possible in the session and made it laborious by asking my son to type out literally every word that came out of her mouth (all of it was just general info and nothing anyone wouldn't know about college admissions)! Despite all these negative signals, I still tried to go ahead with scheduling a few more sessions, because believe it or not, my son insisted he wanted to try her a bit more before giving up ! I wanted to understand how many sessions my son would need and in her response she had the audacity to say my child was a "non high functioning" kid and hence would probably need many sessions (being vague and open ended of course to milk as much money as possible from me) ! The "genius" in her, inferred all this about my son from just the 1 hr meeting !! Not to brag - Honestly, my child is in a highly specialized gifted track at school and elsewhere and in fact the very reason I was looking for a counselor so early on was to make sure I give him all the advantages possible and guide him using the best counselors ! She quoted a ridiculous number of hours at the rate of $300 per hr and I told her , her website states she will only need 3-4 sessions for coming up with a 4 year plan and her response was "website is outdated " !!! (can you believe that ??) Parents, please be careful when choosing a counselor. Please make sure the counselor has the right emotional intelligence, credentials , experience to deal with your child in this vulnerable yet important stage of their life. Please don't select a counselor based purely on 5 star online reviews or what these counselors say they achieved for themselves. If in your initial interactions you detect the counselor's main focus is money, and not your child or if the counselor is rude, evasive about answering your questions , please take these red flags seriously and run miles away from her/him ! I am very thankful that I was able to detect this problem early on and not expose my child to a horrible 4 year counselling experience !

I agree with S A 's review. Not great at emotional intelligence with teens. I think she's got a…read moremethod and that works for some kids, she isn't into customizing for how the child learns. I am sharing that his score went down a full 100 points after - full 3 months of tutoring with her. Worst yet when we shared this news she never responded to us again.

My daughter works one-on-one with UPUSH tutor Matt Pickup, and we could not be happier with the…read moreexperience. Matt brings deep knowledge, excellent teaching materials, and a highly effective approach to tutoring. He is an exceptionally qualified professional. Thanks to Matt, AP US History has become far more engaging for my daughter, and she showed impressive results from the very first session. Her overall performance in junior year has also improved as a direct result of his guidance. Thank you, Matt, for sharing your expertise with such dedication, passion, and care. We truly appreciate your work and highly recommend your services.

We've been working with Sophia Sears for about 1.5 years on writing and she's been a phenomenal…read moretutor. Her expertise, dedication and passion for writing has directly helped my elementary school child grow tremendously as a writer (w/ additional proof in standardized tests). She has provided resources, frameworks and scaffolding that have directly helped deepen the learning process on topics like personal narratives, summarizing and themes. Having a tutor who also acts as a thought partner on all things writing, has also been lovely. Finally, Sophia has also introduced my child to new genres of books and created special writing units related to school assignments, events and trips. These have all provided extensive new background knowledge which make learning very enriching. She truly goes above and beyond, as you can see from all the other rave reviews on yelp! Can't recommend her enough, she is amazing!

We couldn't be happier with Margaret! She was the only college and career counselor willing to help…read moreus out when our son graduated unexpectedly early, missing the college prep that he would have done in his senior year. The other counselors I contacted were only willing to take on clients as freshmen or earlier. As well as helping him polish his essay, and fill out the college apps., her assistance was invaluable in opening new doors, and colleges he hadn't considered. Her insight led to him following his passion, and getting a degree which will further his dreams, rather than the direction he'd been planning, in which he thought he "should" go. After researching, in great detail, colleges which were possibilities, she worked with our son to make sure applications were in on time - taking us parents out of the equation. After acceptance, she worked with the admissions office, and she made several conference calls with my son and the college of his choice, making sure he received as much credit as possible for the college courses he had taken. He ended up enrolling as a second semester sophomore, which is very helpful to the bank account. Not only is Margaret worth every penny, I'm confident that we've come out ahead! Margaret is smart and kind and worked very hard for us, doing things we didn't even know to do, and our son is in a much better place because of it. Woohoo! She is as good as it gets!

Margaret really knows her way around the common app! We used her towards the end of the college app…read moreprocess, when we were tired out and stressed about it. She is very helpful and really cares about the students and finding the right fit. Has helpful suggestions and is very knowledgeable and fun to work with. Highly responsive in email/text. We tried three other college coaches, and she was definitely the best!

As a parent, I honestly felt we had started the college application process too late. We first…read morebegan working with Mr. Park during the summer before senior year, and I was worried there would not be enough time to really help my son. But after meeting him, my thinking completely changed. From the beginning, Mr. Park was very clear, organized, and realistic with us. He did not just give general advice like many other counselors. He took time to understand my son's strengths, personality, and goals, and gave guidance based specifically on him. That made a very big difference for us. He helped a lot with essays and personal statements. Many times he pushed my son to think deeper and explain his experiences better, and I could see the improvement over time. His feedback was very detailed and personal, not advice that I could find online. What I appreciated most was that he was honest and straightforward while still being very supportive. The college process can be stressful for both students and parents, but Mr. Park helped make everything feel much more manageable. My son also became more confident, organized, and mature during this process. I truly feel Mr. Park cares about his students and wants them to succeed long term, not only for college admissions. I would highly recommend him to any family looking for genuine and personalized college counseling support.

I write this recommendation as a reflection of the process we went through with Mr. Park. We…read moreweren't sure what to do or what we were looking for when we searched for a counselor. We searched and met with a few counselors before deciding to go with Mr. Park. It is one of the best things we did for our child and for ourselves. Mr. Park helped our child navigate through his entire high school and the college application process. Mr. Park continues to mentor him even after our son graduated high school and left for college. Mr. Park's guidance is very direct and genuine in the student's best interest. You can see he guides each of his students differently based on their capabilities and their aspirations. He is very honest with them if they are going down the wrong path and guides them back onto the right track in order to maximize their potentials. He can be critical at times, but as we reflected back, it was in the best interest of the student. He took the pressure off the parents. More times than not, parents worry more than we should and it can have an opposite effect despite us thinking its our good intentions. I strongly recommend him as a coach and guidance counselor for any students who really want to strive to get into the best universities in the country. He help guided our child into the top 10 colleges in the country. At the end when reflecting back....Mr. Park's impact was beyond just a high school planning and college application process, but he instilled some life perspectives that are very important for long term success. We have a second child that is a bit younger, but we do plan to have Mr. Park guide the younger one too!

Chris is an outstanding counselor. He helped me write my essays for UCs and the Common App and…read moresupplementals for schools such as NYU and Columbia. His organization and the information he provides about all of the schools are amazing and reduced the stress of having to research all of the small things for each school I was interested in. The way he guided me to write the essay was efficient and saved me a lot of time as I didn't have to write the same essay for another question that was similar to the last. I was able to finish my essays by August. It was a big relief and the whole process seemed very manageable with his help. His ability to provide fluidity in my writing and his knowledge of college admissions helped me especially because my writing was "impenetrable" or difficult for someone who didn't know me to understand. Besides the support he gave me with essays, he was also very easily accessible and understanding. I had his number and if there was anything that came up in the way of a meeting, I could just text him and I got a response in less than an hour. Any rescheduling of a meeting was simple and caused no trouble. Chris is a very straightforward person and gave me the support and advice I needed to write my essays. He is also pretty funny and a down-to-earth person which helped as meetings didn't come as something I didn't want to do. Chris was a great college counselor and I recommend him as his understanding of the application process and his ability to tutor and write were a great help.

I come from a non-traditional educational background, having gone directly to the US Air Force out…read moreof high school, only to stare down my UC undergraduate applications at the age of 29. Chris helped calm my nerves during the entire process. Chris is patient and has a unique talent of channeling your talents with the best possible outcome. He reassured me that my uniqueness had value. He got me talking about my achievements, made me feel proud, and helped me coalesce my thoughts into an essay that won me acceptance to Cal. In fact, after my acceptance into Cal, the admissions team asked if they could publish my personal statement to help other prospective students. Out of thousands of applications, they remembered mine! I highly recommend Chris for anyone who struggles to put their thoughts to paper for a personal statement. Thanks to Chris, my life trajectory changed in ways I never imagined. Chris has also tutored me in other areas such as Math and Writing. Learning never ends and Chris is unceasingly helpful in all aspects of my life. He is the most incredible writer I have ever met. I also plan on using Chris' services when I enter the work force after college. Meticulously written cover letters, resumes and thank you notes will put you above the rest. Thank you Chris. I am forever grateful.